Liberal Media Bias: Reince Priebus Doomsday Edition

The prospect of CNN and NBC proper (not NBC News) producing Hillary Clinton biopics is apparently so terrifying Reince Priebus is issuing ultimatums for the 2016 debate cycle three years ahead of time.

In letters to the chairman of NBC Entertainment, Robert Greenblatt, and CNN President Jeff Zucker, Priebus slammed the networks’ “thinly-veiled attempt at putting a thumb on the scales of the 2016 presidential election” as unfair to other potential candidates from both parties.

NBC announced last month it was planning a miniseries starring Diane Lane that would follow Clinton’s trajectory beginning in 1998, the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The series was to air before Clinton could launch a hypothetical White House run. Days later CNN also announced it would produce a documentary to be released in 2014, according to the New York Times.

Reince has declared that if CNN and NBC do not cancel their productions, Republicans will not agree to presidential debates on their networks. Because although the two networks haven’t even begun filming yet, Reince is convinced they will be a love letter to Hillary.

It’s appalling to know executives at major networks have taken it upon themselves to be Hillary Clinton’s campaign operatives.

What’s most amusing is that many people probably had no idea that CNN and NBC were producing these films before Mister Priebus threatened them. It’s also probable that many people who weren’t planning to watch either film will now plan to do so because Reince Priebus doesn’t want them to see it.

CNN and NBC should send Priebus a nice fruit basket or something to thank him for the free promotion.

Just in case it wasn’t clear, Hillary Clinton has not even publicly addressed whether she will run or not, but the idea of it apparently scares the shit out of the RNC.

If only republicans could find a major media outlet that was in their corner.

Mike_Norris

Yes…if only.

D_C_Wilson

Never thought they’d find someone to make Michael Steele look like a great part chairman.

stacib23

Ain’t that the truth.

Victor_the_Crab

The Muppet Michael Steele from The Daily Show looks and acts more dignified than Reince Priebus.

nasani

Steele was actually a winner! GOP took over the House of Rep. and State governments.

Nefercat

“Production of Hillary programming must be stopped or the RNC will not partner with CNN or NBC for any 2016 primary debates.”

Promises, promises.

nasani

Did Reince seriously take time to consider who would be loser in this situation?

Nefercat

This coming from the party that has perennial candidates regularly farmed out to and appearing on the GOP media flagship.

Okay. Sure. No privately owned network can run a program about a well known public figure who might possibly run for office sometime in the future.

Okay. Sure. Say, RNC, how about you fuck off and eat a bag of rusty nails?

muselet

My favorite professional reaction to Reince Priebus’s attempt at manly growling and chest-beating is from Brian Beutler: “[I]t’s sad commentary on the state of the GOP that the allure of gaping at the Republican primary train wreck is a source of negotiating power for the party.”

My favorite amateur reaction comes from TPM commenter “Xyxox”: “WAAAAH!!!! DO WHAT WE SAY OR WE TAKE OUR BALL AND GO HOME!!!! WAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!”

–alopecia

mrbrink

These are right wing operatives working the refs. The relentless tactics from an aging, mentally and emotionally decrepit army of letter-writing cranks in the Brooks Brothers/Citizens United flak machine that made media the inept piece of shit it is today.

If the Hillary biopics are anything like the “Our Nixon” show on CNN last night, all but crying for him by the time the credits started rolling, with that whatever-became-of-them Animal House ending, including their prison sentences that if you watched the program you would have likely considered prison to be way too harsh in the context of… “The Truth About Benghazi” — This Tuesday, only on CNN!

CNN’s ‘Nixon’ was one of, “yeah, sure, Nixon said some things about “homosexuals” and anti-war liberals and those filthy hippies, and was probably a little too paranoid, but he was white, and Republican, and that’s nothing compared to the “The Truth About Benghazi” this Tuesday– only on CNN“!

Republicans should have nothing to worry about. CNN is going to make President Obama look worse than Nixon this week with their docu-mental-fuck-you specials.

Reince Priebus is always out of his league, but they should be thankful that CNN is already helping them out with its not-so-veiled assertion that Obama/Clinton are much worse than Nixon/Kissinger this week. So if Reince Priebus and the GOP want to continue to destroy this presidency and cripple the country while they force everyone to wait and wait and wait for another Hillary run, go right ahead, Republican party! You have CNN’s indifference and moral support!

Why would Republicans want anyone from the outside/inside world seeing them debating things? Every time they open their disgusting mouths, especially on the big stage, something certifiably cruel and insane pops out. They’d rather the debates be handled through their Super PACs and TV advertising. This whole debate-thing is outdated– their direct takeaway from Citizens United and the technological/information age– so it’s harmful to their prospects anyway. They’re looking for an excuse to really hunker down in that physical and ideological war bunker of right wing America because brand protection is key in 2016 to making them look like the reasonable fatherly figure to Hillary’s naive housewife caricature.

And being the shitty excuses for men, for human beings, that they are, none of them will want to face a polished Hillary Clinton with experience, or her ever-present gravitas and confidence making them look small and inadequate before they utter one word in debate. They’re already going into the presidential primary debates with an unfair advantage.

But as I said, they shouldn’t worry too much because there’s no way in Benghazi that the media, let alone CNN, is going to give Hillary Clinton a pass and let decades worth of right wing smears go to waste.

GrafZeppelin127

Shorter version: The GOP can only win if nobody hears the opposition’s message. Republicans need people to consume its propaganda and nothing but its propaganda. Somebody on Media Matters Radio pointed this out over the weekend; Rush Limbaugh and the like tell their audience not to read, watch, listen to, believe, or trust anyone else, whilst “liberal” hosts like Randi Rhodes et al. repeatedly tell their audience to do their own research and find out what’s going on.

Mike_Norris

Now that is probably the real truth of the matter…

GrafZeppelin127

Wait, just so we’re clear: The GOP, which has already threatened the NFL, a multi-billion-dollsr private business, is now threatening other multi-billion-dollar private businesses that it will retaliate if those multi-billion-dollar private businesses do anything that might give anyone the impression that Democrats are not unearthly evil America-hating freedom-destroying gargoyles.

And Fox News never would stoop so low as to do what the GOP alleges NBC and CNN have done — besides promote and cover all those Tea Party rallies a few years ago.

missliberties

Didn’t the GOP freak out over some documentary on Reagan and his wife? If I recall they whined and groaned so much that the documentary never aired.

Good advertising for Hillary.

fry1laurie

Three years to go before conventions, start the censorship early! Hilary’s not guaranteed to win even though she is the favorite now, but start working the refs.

trgahan

I think this is more the GOP working on excuses to continue pulling the electoral process completely within the confines of their media entertainment complex bubble. If the last two presidential elections taught their strategists anything, it is that their candidates and platform don’t stand up to reasonable questioning or “public square” open format.

So they are screaming “LIBERAL BIAS!” at any network that would require something like an actual debate and argue that they shouldn’t have to leave their media safe havens to campaign because everyone else is just “out to get them.”

Draxiar

“thinly-veiled attempt at putting a thumb on the scales of the 2016 presidential election”
Ahem….CITIZENS UNITED!
Whew! Glad I got THAT out of my system.

Mike_Norris

You bet your ass the possibility of Hillary 2016 scares the shit out of them. And it is not because they are stupid–which they are–it is because they are irony impaired. Their hypocrisy is now going to be in the full light of day with their Ted Cruz problem. What will the birthers do when the Canadian born Cruz steps up to run? Not only will Hillary stomp his guts out in a presidential run, but the problem of his foreign birth is going to be a problem. Moderate Republicans are not going to go for Cruz’s maniacal bullshit. What the GOP chair has not figured out–again becasue he is learning and irony impaired–is that people who watch CNN and NBC news are not watching a Republican primary or a convention. Duh… That’s what the learning impaired have Fox news for.

trgahan

If you remember, the same political party currently hocking “birtherism” is also the same one that demanded we remove the constitutional citizenship requirement for president after Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor of California and the GOP briefly thought they had 2008 signed, sealed, and delivered.

It’s Irony-poloza!

Bubble Genius

Ugh, I don’t want to jump on to a birther bandwagon, even if it IS for our side. Cruz’s astonishing stupidity is enough to indict him without having to go that route.

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